Drawing near a building, a woman dressed in a white Jalabiya (the traditional clothing of North African Jews from places such as Morocco and Tunisia) came out.

This in addition to the other few important divergences in the story -- that R' Lazer is the one to suggest it was Mama Rachel, while now it is the woman herself who identified herself as such; and whether she spoke Arabic or Hebrew.An anonymous commenter on the previous post told me that this is nota black and white issue. But apparently it is. ;)

This recent confirmation from Shiloh Musings, which is supposed to convince everyone, is from an anonymous blogger/teacher. Did she hear it directly from the soldier? No, as she writes, she heard it from a soldier in the unit, who was not actually there at the time, since they split up. So he did not see her, so see that she said that she was Rochel Imeinu. He also told her the name of the soldier. Great, so we can ask him directly? His name is "Yoel S." It is a pretty unique name, S with no other letters in the last name, so all we need to do is look him up. Nor does the soldier say explicitly that he heard it this account directly from Yoel S.

OK, you will tell me that that is not what Rav Eliyahu did. He spoke to Rachel Imeinu asking her to pray to Hashem. Is one allowed to do this? One generally accepted approach is yes, though this is actually a halachic dispute whether one is permitted to address the meis, which is what Rav Eliyahu says he did, or whether one should only address Hashem. (See e.g. Be'er Heitiv seif katan 17 here; see also here for a more detailed discussion of the dispute.) I have another post I've been sitting on for over a year, discussing the implication of various sources in the gemara, midrashim, and Zohar in this regard, where I do not think they say what people assume they say, but I do not want to take away attention from the main point.

4) My understanding of Rav Eliyahu's remarks is that he did not claim that he literally sent her. He said what he said. Which was:

'I told her: Rachel, a war is on! Don’t withhold your voice from crying [based on Jeremiah 31,14-16]! Go before G-d, and pray for the soldiers, who are sacrificing themselves for the Nation of Israel, that they should strike - and not be stricken.'

So all he asked was for her to pray to Hashem, just as she did in the pasuk of Rachel Mevakah Al Baneha. He did not say that he asked her to actually go out and act as a scout. He just deduced that that is what she decided to do on her own, and thus it is "as if" he sent her.

But people may well think that this means that one can go and ask dead tzaddikim to take action. That would be prayer to them, rather to Hashem. That would likely be doresh el haMeisim, even according to the accepted position that davening at kivrei tzaddikim is allowed, or that asking tzaddikim to daven for you is allowed. For this transforms the deceased tzaddikim into the saints of a certain other religion, and that is not good.

And this is indeed dangerous territory because we are dealing with an already superstitious hamon am, which performs segulahs directed towards specific deceased rabbis (such as the Chofetz Chaim) to achieve magical ends. And because there is a particular deceased tzaddik, buried in Queens, who people might just turn to in their requests, hoping for direct influence from him.

Overheard: What do you call that again?
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Older fellow with glasses: I see that book in your taliis bag, called "Forgiveness". What is it about? New Age Guy: It is about how you have to forgive all t...

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parshablog is published by (rabbi) josh waxman (joshwaxman [at] yahoo [dot] com), a grad student in Revel, a grad student in a Phd program in computer science at CUNY. i recently received semicha from RIETS. this blog is devoted to parsha as well as whatever it is i am currently learning.